


You Answered Last Time

by churchenbells



Category: Zeroes Series - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Drunkenness, Gen, It's not even hurt/comfort because there's no comfort, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-09
Updated: 2020-07-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25170613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/churchenbells/pseuds/churchenbells
Summary: The Cambria Six haven't spoken properly for years, but when Ethan gets a call from an unknown number, he immediately knows who it is.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	You Answered Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one cup of coffee and did not edit so just take it.  
> Update: I lied I had to edit it.

"I need you."

Ethan blanched. "What?"

Nate? They hadn't spoken for years. Ethan had figured Mr. Big Time didn't need his crew around anymore, none of them needed the others anymore. With a whole community of Zeroes to reach out to, everyone suddenly found people like them. Same powers. Except for Ethan.

The only thing from the other end was muffled breathing, and Ethan thought for a second that Nate had been kidnapped, held hostage, was in serious trouble, and had just called the first person he could think of. Or someone to scam him out of it.

"Nate? Where are you?"

"I'm at home," Nate groaned. He couldn't have expected Ethan to know where he was still living. Ethan did, but that was another matter.

"I'm coming; I'll be right there, okay?" Ethan talked too quickly, panic rising in his chest. Nate hung up without saying anything else, and Ethan was dashing out of his home without his jacket. Nate's place wasn't too far from Ethan's apartment: two bus stops and a run. It was only on the second stop that Ethan realised he'd left the television and all the lights on. Ethan hoped beyond hope that Nate just needed a local sucker to move boxes around instead of a substitute for emergency services. His heart was hammering in his ears as loudly as his knocking on Nate's door when he arrived. The few minutes he spent waiting for someone to answer the door were torture.

Nate finally pulled the door open, bleary and disheveled. His knees buckled as he teetered in the doorway. Ethan almost yelled in his face in relieved anger when he caught a whiff of him.

"You're _drunk_ ." As a skunk.

Nate didn't reply, probably couldn't understand what he was hearing through those gin-soaked eardrums. "You came." He smiled weakly and then moved in to wrap his arms around Ethan's neck. It couldn't even be called a hug; Ethan felt more like a support beam. So Nate needed some kind of maid or babysitter. Of course.

The stifling vapors coming off of Nate were overwhelming, Ethan felt lightheaded and his tongue wasn't cooperating properly with him to ask Nate what exactly he was thinking inviting Ethan over at midnight, drunk off his ass, and in no apparent danger. He pushed Nate back a few steps to enter the house and led him back onto a couch. Leather. Great, at least wiping it off wouldn't be too hard, and if Nate happened to make his own couch reek of vomit, that was his choice. Maneuvering Nate back down to sit felt a little like dancing with a ventriloquist's dummy, all wobbly legs and dead weight and knocking Nate's shins on his ugly modernist coffee table and anything else in the vicinity. Ethan extracted himself from Nate's arms and pushed him back onto the couch to no resistance. It was a wonder Nate had been able to open the door at all.

There was a bottle of gin and a glass strewn about the floor nearby. Ethan hoped the bottle wasn't completely empty, or that Nate had spilled most of it on himself. It sure smelled like it. Otherwise, he'd have to call the emergency services after all. Gin wasn't too alcoholic, Ethan figured, so he could possibly be okay. Had Nate been a lightweight when Ethan had known him? He'd only ever had a few beers, maybe a cocktail or two, so Ethan couldn't be sure. Nate didn't really drink too much in general. At least not around Ethan.

In the meantime, Nate had slumped over facedown on the couch. Ethan leaned in to roll him over on his side, maybe mumble something stupid like "all gin and no tonic" when he heard Nate sobbing. Or heaving. Ethan really hoped it was heaving.

"Uh... Nate?" This was so horrible. There was literally no reason for Ethan to be here. Maybe he could trigger vomiting or something so he could put Nate and this entire situation behind him. "You, uh, good over there?"

Nate sniffled in such an undignified way that Ethan felt guilty just being here and seeing this. "We had it so good, you know? Us. We. Them. I... Us," Nate sobbed, covering his face, "So good. And now I'm just... not us. Me."

Ethan got down to kneel on the floor next to the couch. God, it smelled like an emergency room down here. He fumbled with the voice for something to say, but there was hardly even a tickle. Nate was probably too far gone for anything Ethan could say to help him. Ethan's weak comforting skills had to do, again. "The Zeroes? Yeah, I mean, we're still your friends. We're here for you." Nope. Absolutely not. Hadn't been for a while, but whatever it took to get Nate to stop rattling off pronouns. "You're not alone or anything like that." That was true as far as Ethan knew. He still kept up with the Google alerts—not in a clingy ex-friend way but in a "hey I went to high school with Bill Clinton" kind of way—and Nate was finally in the news for something other than domestic terrorism. Hanging out with important people, important "paranetworked individuals", a stupid name if Ethan had ever heard one, but he figured you couldn't exactly use "Zeroes" in a legal document. "And you've got, you know, your family and stuff." Ethan tried hard not to make that last part sound like a question.

Nate tried to prop himself up on his elbows, but his tears and sweat had effectively fused his cheek to the leather, and he soon gave up to slump down further. His arm dangled uselessly down. The sobbing had subsided a bit, and Nate just softly hitched, his shoulders jerking up every few breaths. "I'm just really alone," he mumbled. He made eye contact with Ethan, who really hoped his expression showed concern or tenderness instead of the mortification he was feeling for Nate. "You came," he repeated, "Why?"

"You said you needed me." _To clean up after you after five years of basically nothing while you and your fellow Charismatics tooted your own horns, so maybe I shouldn't have even come,_ Ethan thought he should have added. And that wasn't really fair, because Nate had called him, after all. Missed him, maybe. Jeez, maybe he really was alone. Politicians and social climbers probably made for shitty fair-weather friends. Ethan's irritation with Nate's inebriation softened thinking about that. Nate was drinking alone on a Friday night, without even one person, let alone a crowd, for company.

"Come on, let's get you out of here," Ethan said, peeling Nate's face off the couch with a sticky sound. His cheek came away reddened, but Nate didn't comment on it. "Where to?" he asked. Putting him to bed was probably the best option, other than a cold shower. Whichever he found first. He slung Nate's arm over his neck, wrinkling his nose again. Nate would probably feel better wearing a shirt and pants that didn't smell like he'd spilled half a drink on them, but Ethan's caretaking had limits.

"My room is on the, uh, left," Nate replied, his voice thick. Ethan had to assume he meant the end of the hallway, and not what was clearly a linen closet on his left. They slowly made their way to Nate's room, until Nate started retching in earnest. Ethan dutifully averted his eyes from the mess. Once Nate seemed to have emptied out, Ethan sat him down a ways from the vomit. " _Mierda_. I'm so, so sorry," Nate croaked.

Ethan gingerly made his way back towards the kitchen to get Nate a glass of water. Food was good too, or was that only before drinking? He wished he'd paid more attention to those alcohol safety lectures in school, or at least gone to more parties. Ethan decided on some crackers on the counter and returned to find Nate sitting dejectedly where Ethan had left him. "Hey, that's totally fine. I'll clean it up," Ethan reassured him. Nate was starting to worry him.

Ethan set the water and crackers next to Nate. "Drink that slowly, okay? Do you need me to call 911 or something? Do you need an ambulance?"

Nate sputtered and choked, water dribbling down his chin. "No no no no no, don't call anybody," he wheezed.

"I don't know, man." He did seem a little more lucid, though maybe that was just because he wasn't crying anymore.

Nate crushed a cracker into his mouth so fast Ethan was afraid he would vomit again, following that with a gulp of water. "Please don't call anyone, please."

Because drunk people were the best judges of who to call, clearly. Ethan didn't want to make a scene with Nate, though. Besides, Nate looked slightly better after drinking the water. Ethan sighed. "Alright, but you're going to sleep after this." Not like he had a choice, Nate looked half-asleep already.

Ethan finally dragged Nate into the room, careful not to jostle him too much, lest the crackers make a reappearance. Nate flopped onto his bed, dead to the world. This place looked so... lifeless and empty. So unlike the Saldana's place back in Cambria. It looked like a Macy's advertisement and felt like no one ever came in here, even Nate. Even so, Ethan tucked Nate into the covers. He turned Nate onto his side and slid a trash can next to the bed. That, at least, he knew how to do. Hopefully, Nate wasn't too fussy about his bedroom garbage. Or the fact that Ethan had just seen him in the most compromising position of his life. 

"Are you going to stay?" Nate mumbled.

It was probably best for both of their egos if he didn't, but Nate looked so sad here. And he'd puked in the hallway. And would likely puke again here. "Yeah," Ethan answered. "I guess I'd feel kind of bad if you slid into a coma here."

"Don't go."

"I won't."

**Author's Note:**

> No it's not out of character they've just gone through a lot of character development since they were 17 I promise, and I won't explain why I wrote this either.  
> Also yes Ethan is a little stupid, you can totally get alcohol poisoning from gin, I know that.


End file.
